It's Congress's Duty to Support Violence Against Women Act

About Roy Speckhardt:

Roy Speckhardt has been the executive director of the American Humanist Association since 2005. He also serves as a board member of the Humanist Institute, the Secular Coalition for America, Institute for Humanist Studies, the United Coalition of Reason, and as an advisory board member of the Secular Student Alliance.

The Violence Against Women Act should be reauthorized as soon as possible. The issues that the act confronts, including domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking, are serious problems that benefit from this legislative effort to lessen their occurrence and help women to feel safer.

As a man, it's easier to forget about the intense and constant fear that many women have regarding abuse, because many of us aren't subject to that sort of treatment. Our comparative ignorance of this violence is regularly reaffirmed by religious and political extremists who claim that women bring assault onto themselves by the way they dress and how they act. Such misinformation is offensive and serves only to castigate victims and excuse their assailants. That's why it is so important that we take steps to reduce incidents of assault and raise public awareness through educational programs. As human beings and fellow Americans we must recognize that women have a right to be protected from gender based violence, regardless of our own gender.

[Read: Dems Put GOP in Political Box Over Women's Issues]

The original passage of the Violence Against Women Act and its subsequent reauthorizations meant that our government formally acknowledged that domestic and sexual violence exists on a wide scale and causes tremendous harm to those involved. Such recognition is crucial to empowering victims of violence and absolutely essential to stopping future incidents from happening.

Congress has a duty to support bills like the Violence Against Women Act which protect our fellow citizens from violent aggressors and build supportive communities to assist those that have already been attacked. If we fail to come together on this issue our mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, grandmothers, and granddaughters will be exposed to preventable terror and cruelty. No human being deserves that fate.

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